The gym teacher of my school was also the coach of our local soccer team. When this story happened, I had been doing German jiu jitsu for nine years, was currently preparing for the southern German championship, and simultaneously had a D in gym class for the fifth time in a row. The reason for this was that, in the eyes of my gym teacher, anyone who wasn’t on the soccer team had to be unathletic and have no interest in sports. He pretty much made us play soccer every class, only focused on the boys he knew from his team, and gave everyone else a D at the end.

After a while I was fed up with it. I was getting a D, no matter what. I stayed in my classroom doing homework when gym class started, until a classmate came to bring me to the teacher. When I got there, he immediately laid into me, accusing me of being a lazy, entitled kid, only playing computer games all day, etc.

Knowing it wasn’t true, I kept my cool and waited for him to run out of steam to explain my protest. This didn’t work out. He kept getting angrier by the minute. After a while he started to come closer and closer to me. To avoid physical confrontation, I backed up, and kept going until I arrived at the wall. He kept coming nearer, and after he grabbed my shirt, routine kicked in. I threw him to the ground. Apparently, this caught him by surprise and he hit himself in the face while trying to keep his balance. Then his nose started bleeding.

He got up without a word and left the gym. After 20 minutes, my class decided he was not coming back, and we went to our classroom. Some minutes later, the principal arrived with two police officers. They took me out of the class and explained that the gym teacher told them I attacked him. I tried to explain my side of the story, but the principal wouldn’t have any of it. My parents were called in and they took me home. We were told I was suspended until further notice, and that they’d get back to us when they knew if the gym teacher would press charges. They told us it would be best to consider a voluntary change of school. My parents didn’t know who to believe. After all, I was a teenager, and they knew the teacher and I weren’t getting along.

They took me out of my jiu jitsu dojo and started looking for other schools, saying it would be best that way. That might have been the end of it, but a friend told me after a while that apparently a student made a video with his phone. After seeing it, my parents finally sided with me and immediately confronted the principal who, sadly, still seemed to side with his teacher. After contacting a lawyer, we learned that our chances were slim at best. We were discouraged, and again began looking for other schools. However, the other parents of the soccer team now knew what really happened. The team soon decided to do what the school wouldn’t, and kicked the coach to the curb. This hit him where it really hurt. He moved soon after. I finished school with an A in gym class.

(I’m in my economics class. My class is known for goofing around, but we still do our work. My teacher is sort of laid back with us, so we joke with her about things. Our teacher is giving a lecture until we start getting off topic. I can’t remember how exactly we got to this, but we are talking about death in older people. Also, the teacher has been sick and going to the doctor, and recently had surgery.One girl is talking to the teacher. Everyone can hear her, speaking in a uncaring voice.)

Girl #1: “What’s the point, if you’re going to die, anyway?”

(In a split second everyone turns to her and gasps in shock.)

Classmate #1: “What is wrong with you?!”

Classmate #2: “How can you just say that?!”

Classmate #3: “Wow, [Girl #1]!”

Classmate #4: “What the f***?!”

(The teacher is just shocked, and [Girl #1] realizes what she just said.)

Teacher: “Well, guys, if I’m not here tomorrow… You should know why.”

Girl #1:*stammering* “I mean, we all die in the end.”

Girl #2: “[Girl #1], if your average in the class suddenly goes down, you should know why.”

(I work at a middle school office, and parents need to bring in a doctor’s note if their student missed school because of an appointment. One day, a mother walks in with a note.)

Mother: “I’d like to clear my child’s absence. He had a dentist’s appointment.” *makes no move to hand me a note*

Me: “Sure thing! However, to verify your child was at the dentist, we need a—”

Mother:*interrupting* “That’s fine! I know the date! It was January 8th, 2015!”

Me: “I’m sorry, but… Wait. Did you just say, ‘2015’?”

Mother: “YES! What, are you deaf or something?”

Me: “That was four years ago. There’s only three grades in middle school. Your kid doesn’t even attend this school anymore, ma’am.”

Mother:*now nearly shouting* “BUT I KNOW THE DATE! YOU NEED TO CLEAR THIS! I CAN’T LET THIS GET ON MY SON’S PERMANENT RECORD!”

Me: “Ma’am, even if your child still attended this school, I could not excuse it, because it’s long after the gradebook closed for the year. You don’t need to worry about his permanent record; that’s only for—”

Mother: “AGH! FORGET IT! YOU’RE JUST BEING UNREASONABLE!” *storms out of the office*

(I teach Sunday School to a group of seven- to nine-year-olds, so there is plenty of squirming and giggling to go around. Today’s lesson calls for me to teach a few words in sign language — “love,” etc. — and I’m going over them, when one of the boys raises his hand.)

Boy: “What does this sign mean? I always have to hold my hand up like this when I need to use the bathroom at school.”

(I recognize he’s making the sign for the letter T, which also means “toilet” or “bathroom” if you shake your hand. I explain it, and the boy thinks for a moment.)

Boy: “What’s the sign for the letter O?”

(I demonstrated, realizing we were getting a little off track, but happy that he was engaged and interested. The boy giggled and immediately began fingerspelling “T-O-O-T.” With only two letters I managed to give an eight-year-old’s sense of humor all the ammo it needed.)

I am a New Zealander, and I was applying for graduate study at a number of universities in the United States. A month or two after applications went in, I received a letter from one of the universities — a prestigious one which should know better — to inform me that my application was incomplete because I had not submitted a TOEFL score. “TOEFL” is short for “test of English as a foreign language,” and is used by US universities to ensure that foreign students have sufficient command of English to be able to study in an English language environment. It is not required for native English speakers, so of course I had not taken the test.

So, I wrote them a reply, which went something like this.

“You have asked me for a TOEFL score. As it happens, I was resident in the USA from age eight weeks to four years old, when I learned to speak. Had I remained there, I could reasonably claim that English was a foreign language, but I then moved back to New Zealand. As such, I speak English natively. I know to never split an infinitive. I avoid cliches like the plague. Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put. I don’t use no double negatives. In short, I cannot in good faith take a test of English as a foreign language.”